#SILENT NIGHT (2023) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

drabbles-mc · 5 months

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Speaking Volumes

Brian Godlock x F!Reader

Inspired by @storiesofsvu's Holiday Bingo prompt: spending xmas alone

Warnings: 18+, angst, hospitals, blood/injury

Word Count: 3.6k

A/N: There was no way that I was going to be able to watch Silent Night and not want to write a story about it. So here we are! Getting out of my comfort zone with this and I had sooooo much fun with this. I feel like I already want to write more for Brian and this Reader but we shall see. Anyway! Enjoy. 😌

No one had stepped up to try and stop you when you had offered to work Christmas Eve. Usually it was a lot more of a fight to get enough people volunteering to staff the hospital for the holidays. Or, at least, that’s what you’d been told. It was your first round of holidays in La Porte—you’d only moved there a couple months before. But it seemed pretty similar to the other hospitals that you’d worked in, in that regard. Volunteers were always preferable, and if there weren’t enough then they would start drawing short straws.

Christmas hadn’t been your favorite holiday in a long time, and being in a new city with no real friends yet, far away from what little family you still considered yourself close with, certainly didn’t do anything to revitalize your holiday spirit. Work didn’t really stop you from being alone on Christmas in that way. Work didn’t bring your family closer, it didn’t magically give you friends and make you close with your coworkers. What it did do, however, was give you something to do. A task. It made you feel useful. That would have to suffice until this time next year.

You were up to your nose in discharge paperwork, patients who were eager to make it home just in time for Christmas Eve. Some of them were leaving even when they probably shouldn’t have been, but there was nothing that you could do to stop them. You’d see some of them again soon, maybe even before New Years came around. Some of them you tried to convince to stay, but deep down you knew that they weren’t going to listen. You were used to that, too.

While the entire night wasn’t filled with chaos, you found yourself waiting for it anyway. There were more empty beds than there had been at the start of the day, and you were waiting for the inevitable call that would fill them all again. That was the cycle of it. The fact that it was a holiday didn’t really matter, per se, but it always felt different around the holidays. It felt more different this year when your patients were going to be the only ones that you were spending Christmas Eve with.

Just as you were finishing up notes on one of your patients that hadn’t been discharged, you heard the call. You heard the rushed footsteps. Doing one last look-over to make sure your patient was alright, you snapped their chart closed before taking off in the same direction that everyone else was going.

“What do we got?” you asked as you kept pace with the doctor who had headed off first, leaning forward just a little bit, so you could hear her answer above all the other background noise that was crinkling in your ear.

“Another shoot-out.” She kept her answers with you short and clear, or at least always tried to, which you appreciated. You never had to ask her to do it, either, and she was never condescending about it. She wasn’t warm and friendly with you, or seemingly anyone, but she was kind in a very professional way.

You were shaking your head, not at the way that she answered you but about what her answer was. The world didn’t stop for the holidays. Unfortunately, just like the hospital, crime was a business that operated all 365 days of the year. Kept you busy enough but sometimes you wished that it didn’t. “Jesus,” you muttered, more to yourself than to the doctor.

Apparently you’d said it louder than you meant to, not always the best at dialing in your own volume. You wouldn’t have noticed it if the doctor hadn’t also responded to you. It got lost in the increased volume of the sirens as the two of you came to a stop outside the door where the ambulances were rolling up.

“What?” you asked, unsure if what she’d said was something that you needed to know.

She turned so that she was looking directly at you, so that you were able to read her lips as she spoke. “Said I don’t think Jesus had anything to do with this.”

You didn’t have any good rebuttal for that. She was probably right. The two of you stood in silence as the ambulances came to a stop, the paramedics inside them instantly piling out. You were so busy looking at the two men that were being wheeled out on their gurneys. Neither of them looked like they were in good shape, but you were so busy looking at them that you forgot to look at the medics as they spoke. Their words became part of the static of the scene, the aid you were wearing only able to filter through so much. You were internally cursing yourself for not paying attention, but regardless you knew that you were still on deck to help. You knew enough about how it all went go get you through until you could talk to the doctor. Stepping towards the gurney closest to you, you tagged in and pushed it into the ER.

From the second you came to a halt in the ER, you were dialed in. The cacophony of noise and static got hard to sift through sometimes, but every now and then you could tune it out. There was a certain element of routine to gunshot wounds and stab wounds which helped. Care varied slightly depending on where the injuries were, how bad they were, but there was a series of steps that had to be followed for all of them. You could do that part of it without issue, without any dragged-out discussion that you had to maneuver through.

One of the two men brought in was a cop. You’d caught someone saying that at one point during the entire process. You hadn’t managed to catch any tidbits about the other man, though. And even though no one had said which one of the patients was the police officer, you had a feeling it wasn’t the man that you were currently peeling the clothing off of. Sure, he might’ve had a bulletproof vest on, but something still didn’t say cop to you. It didn’t matter. Cop or criminal or anything in between he still needed bullets pulled out of him and stitches put in and probably a handful of other things you wouldn’t know about until later.

You were working in tandem with the doctors who were staffing the ER for the night. You didn’t know them quite as well since the ER wasn’t typically where you worked most of the time, but you at least knew of them. You had no idea if they also knew of you, too.

You hadn’t heard what the other doctors and nurses had been saying about the other patient, but what you did hear was the monotonous single note that came with someone flatlining. You looked up just long enough to make sure it wasn’t your guy. When you saw the weak but still present rhythm on the monitor, you looked back over your shoulder. You saw the team trying desperately to get the man’s heart to beat. Even though you didn’t know what exact injuries he’d come in with, there was a feeling in the pit of your stomach that was telling you there was nothing that they were going to be able to do to bring him back. The other doctor was too far away for you to be able to read his lips but you saw him looking at the clock on the wall and you knew exactly what he was saying regardless. You didn’t want to have to be doing the same for your patient so you dove right back in.

He was shipped off to surgery quickly once you did your initial check and they got an operating room ready. There was nothing that they needed from you for him at that point. You stayed out on the floor, checked back in on your other patients. When he came back out of surgery, if he made it back out of surgery, then he’d be your responsibility again.

You were watching the doors to the wing of operating rooms swing closed when you thought you heard someone behind you talking to you. Turning around, you saw another doctor standing there, jacket on with her bag on her shoulder. She looked at you expectantly and you knew you’d missed the question.

“Sorry, what?”

She nodded towards the doors that were now shut. “Was that Brian?”

You shook your head. “I, um, I don’t know. He didn’t…didn’t come in with any ID.” You paused, taking in the pensive look on her face. “Who’s Brian?”

“Godlock,” she said, like it sufficed as any kind of real answer. When she saw that you were still lost, her eyes widened. “Right. You weren’t here last—” She stopped herself short. “This time last year he came in. Multiple gunshot wounds. Just lost his son. It was…horrible.”

“Oh…” You were sure that you were supposed to have something to say and you just didn’t.

You weren’t sure if she was talking to you or herself when she said, “He’ll make it.” She nodded, still not looking at you. “He made it last time. He’ll make it this time.”

She didn’t say anything else to you, or to the powers that be. No goodbye, no Happy Holidays or anything of the sort. She just kept on walking, leaving you alone once again. You turned your attention back to the closed doors. Brian. You turned the name over in your head as you thought about what he looked like. He might’ve been a Brian. Sighing, you turned and made your way back to the main floor to keep busy while you waited. You’d find out if he was Brian or not soon enough.

It turned out that the doctor on her way out the door had been right. The man who you helped wheel into the ER was in fact Brian Godlock. A name that meant nothing to you but all it took was a quick Google search to see why she would have remembered him. You thought that you were spending Christmas alone, but you couldn’t even imagine what it was going to be like for him.

When you made it to his room in your rounds, he was asleep. Stable, thankfully, but asleep. You checked his vitals, looked over what exactly they’d done to him in the OR, the extent of the work that they had to put into him. It was a waiting game now.

Just as you were updating his charts you saw out of the corner of your eye some movement on the bed. A tiny shift, but it was something. Turning your head, you saw him slowly starting to shift around, his eyes starting to open. You set his chart down and walked over so that you were standing closer to his head. Part of you wanted to reach out and try to offer some type of reassurance, but you didn’t. You watched him slowly come to terms with where he was. His eyelids hung low for a moment as he looked around, but when he fully recognized where he was and why, you saw him starting to get frantic. A lot of people in his position usually did.

“Brian,” you did your best to be mindful of your tone, your volume, “Brian you’re alright. You’re in the hospital, but you’re okay.” You waited for him to look you in the eyes, and it was only then that you continued. “You’re okay.”

He hesitated, staring at you for a few seconds that felt more like minutes. But then you saw it, the slight drop of his shoulders, the almost imperceptible nod of his head. You didn’t know him well enough to know if it was out of compliance or defeat. He wasn’t relaxed, not by any means, but at least he no longer looked like he was about to get up and try to make a break for it. He sunk back against the pillow and you gave a nod of approval.

“Want me to call your wife?” you asked as you stepped back to grab his chart again. When he didn’t respond, you looked over at him, saw the confusion on his face. Nodding towards the gold band around his finger you said, “You didn’t have anyone as an emergency contact, so we didn’t call anyone. But if you give me your wife’s number I can call her.”

He shook his head. You didn’t feel the expression your face must’ve taken on, but whatever it was, it prompted him to motion at you, miming writing with a pencil. Opening the drawer of the cabinet by his bed, you pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and handed it to him. He nodded in thanks as he took it from you. The breath he pulled in was ragged as he found his grip on the pencil and began to write. He wasn’t holding onto it for very long before he handed the pad of paper back to you.

I can’t talk.

Your eyes widened as you shook your head. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t had the chance to read all the way back in your chart.” Clearing your throat, you handed the pad back to him and said, “I can still call your wife if you want.”

He scribbled again. No you can’t.

The look on his face didn’t give you any clue as to why you couldn’t call. Whether he was divorced or if it was something much more tragic than that, you didn’t know. You weren’t going to ask him, either. He’d clearly been through enough without you trying to drag all of that out of him.

“You can’t talk,” you said, allowing yourself a small smile, “and I can’t hear. So I think we’ll be alright.” Looking over at him, you saw the way his brows drew together. You chuckled, turning your head a little more so that he could see your ear and your hearing aid a little better. “Been deaf in my left ear my whole life. Right ear has just been getting worse and worse.” You shrugged. “I learned sign—still learning, actually. It might be helpful for you too.”

He hesitated, and you caught it. You frowned, but you understood. You knew precious little about the man lying on the bed in front of you, but what little you knew gave you enough of a picture. You didn’t know all of the details of what he’d been through that night, but you knew the outcome, the injuries. You knew what happened to his son, and now you knew that something happened with him and his wife. Something was telling you that he hadn’t gone into the evening really planning on needing to communicate with anyone anytime soon.

“Help,” you said simply when you saw in his eyes that he was getting lost in his own thoughts. He looked at you, confused once more. “It’s a good sign for you to know for now.” You put one hand out, palm-up, and made a thumbs-up with your other hand and placed it in your flat palm before lifting both hands in unison. “Help.” You nodded at him. “Try it.”

For a moment you thought that he was going to brush you off. You wouldn’t have blamed him for it. He didn’t know you, didn’t owe you anything. But right now you were all he had, and he was all you had too. Maybe that was part of why he humored you, or maybe there was something else entirely going on in his head. Either way, he mirrored your hand positioning and motions.

You smiled and nodded. “Good. Now you at least know how to ask me for help.”

He nodded, almost lifting the ends of his lips. It was more than you expected to get from someone in his position. He grabbed the pad of paper again and wrote Thank you.

You pressed your fingertips to the front of your chin before pulling them away, letting your arm drop like a drawbridge. “Thank you.” You paused, laughing. “Not to be confused with, you know,” you brushed your fingertips along the bottom of your chin, flicking them outwards, “that one.” You smiled. “That one, everyone knows.”

The smile he gave at that looked a little more real. Still tired, but real enough to make it feel like a win, like a good punctuation mark to the entire conversation. You took a breath and walked back to put the last few details on his chart.

“I’ll be back to check on you in a little while. But,” you set the chart down at looked at him, “you should try to rest. You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

He gave a small nod before pressing his fingertips to the front of his chin and pulling them out and away. You laughed, nodding before stepping out of the room to go about the rest of your business.

The rest of the night wasn’t nearly as busy as when Brian had been brought in. There were no more ambulances and flashing lights. No more sirens. It was quieter for the rest of the night than it had been, but it wasn’t as still as the start of your shift had been. You glanced in Brian’s room when you would walk by even though you couldn’t stop to really check in yet. He always looked like he was sleeping. His eyes were shut.

When you finally made it back to his room, it was with an armful of paperwork. It all had to get done and there was nothing stopping you from completing it while you sat in the chair beside his bed instead of the chair at the nurses’ station.

You didn’t hear him when he started to stir again. You were so focused on the paperwork in your lap that you didn’t catch him out of the corner of your eye, either. Brian could’ve waved to get your attention, could’ve cleared his throat obnoxiously loud as a means to the same ends. Hell, if he wanted to, he could’ve thrown his pencil at you. But instead he just watched you. Watched as you scribbled on the clipboard in front of you, flipping back and forth between the pages. Watched as you gnawed at your bottom lip in concentration, deep in thought.

It wasn’t until you were moving on from one small pile of papers to the next that you looked up and realized that he was awake. You gasped quietly in surprise, eyes widening. Your shocked gasp shifted into laughter as you leaned back in your chair. “Sorry,” you said as you placed your closed fist against your chest and made a circular motion. “Didn’t realize you were awake.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly before tapping his ear with his pointer finger. You rolled your eyes and smiled, knowing exactly what he was communicating to you without him speaking or writing it down. “I know why I didn’t realize it. I’m just saying.” You were about to get back into your paperwork when you saw him copy your sign for sorry. You would have assumed that he was just repeating your motions for the sake of learning if the look on his face hadn’t been so sincere. “Why are you sorry?”

He grabbed the paper and pencil and started writing. He held it up for you to see, his handwriting just large enough so that you didn’t have to take it from him to read it. You’re here on Christmas.

You let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t be sorry. Wasn’t really, um, feeling the holiday spirit much anyway.” You paused. “I volunteered.” Leaning forward, you propped your elbows on your knees. “Lucky for you, though, right?” It was impossible to miss the conflicted look on his face. Letting out a sigh, you said, “I’m not going to ask what happened tonight. Partially because it’s probably a lot to write,” you allowed yourself a tiny smile before continuing, “but also because you’re going to have to answer all of those questions when the cops get here in the morning.” The surprised look on his face would have been amusing if the stakes were different. “Gunshot wounds—they always have to come when there are gunshot wounds.”

He let out a deep sigh, somehow managing to sink deeper into the hospital bed, into the pillow. He shut his eyes for a moment, a long, slow blink before he stared ahead at the wall opposite of him. You thought you’d lost him for the rest of the night before he grabbed his pencil again.

You don’t have to sit here all night.

You smiled, allowing the diversion of the conversation. “I know. But we’re both alone on Christmas. So now, you know,” you settled back in your chair with a fresh slip of paperwork, “now we’re not.”

Despite all of the emotions pooling and swirling around his eyes, he nodded. He moved his pencil for a moment, almost like he was about to start writing. He stared hard at the paper for a few seconds before he let the pencil drop. He looked at the blank sheet of paper for a moment longer before he turned and looked at you instead.

You gave him a small but warm smile as he looked at you, not sure what else you could offer him, or should offer him. It wasn’t much, but it must’ve been the right thing because he let out a deep breath, settling down a bit more. He was still looking at you when you went back to looking at the paper in front of you. You found yourself settling a little bit more too, feeling a little less alone than before.

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